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Vivendi’s credit rating may be under threat in the wake of the French
conglomerate’s acquisition of EMI’s recorded music division, a move that has
“exhausted” its debt capacity.

Vivendi secured the £1.2 billion takeover this month after a string of other
deals. In April it paid £7 billion for Vodafone’s 44 per cent stake in the
French mobile network SFR and it is in talks about increasing its investment
in the Polish broadcaster TVN.

Moody’s said that the EMI takeover was a “credit negative” for Vivendi, since
it fully exhausted its debt capacity against a backdrop of a worsening
macroeconomic